Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Dambisa Moyo's masterpiece is an economic blueprint intended to serve as a paradigm for weaning Africa off the debilitating aid-dependency syndrome that has kept the continent in perpetual economic stagnancy for decades. Using dependable statistics, Moyo argues that government-to-government or bilateral aid (which should be distinguished from charity-based aid) to Africa undermines the ability of Africans to conceptualize their own best economic and political policies. As she puts it: "The net result of aid-dependency is that instead of having a functioning Africa, managed by Africans, for Africans, what is left is one where outsiders attempt to map its destiny and call the shots."(66) Foreign aid does not only undermine economic growth, it keeps recipient countries in a state of endemic poverty. It is itself an underlying cause of social unrest and possibly even civil war. Moyo notes that the "prospect of seizing power and gaining access to unlimited aid wealth is irresistible."(59) To buttress her argument, she refers to Grossman (1992) who contends that the underlying purpose of rebellion is the capture of the state for financial advantage, and that aid makes such conflict more likely. In the past fifty years, Moyo observes, over US$1trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from the rich countries of the West to Africa. Yet, aid has helped make the poor poorer; economic growth slower. According to Moyo, the notion that foreign aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so in Africa is tantamount to a myth. Millions in Africa, she notes, are poorer today on account of aid dependency. Indeed, aid has been and continues to be, an unmitigated political and economic and humanitarian disaster for Africa. Aid is not benign--it is malignant. In short, aid is not part of the solution; it is the problem. And here is how. Aid breeds corruption in Africa. If the world has one picture of the African continent, it is one of corrupt statesmen. With very few exceptions, African leaders have crowned themselves in gold, seized land, handed over state businesses to relatives and friends, diverted billions of aid-money to foreign bank accounts, and generally treated their countries like giant personalized cash dispensers. According to Transparency International, Mobutu Sese Seko of erstwhile Zaire is estimated to have looted the State to the tune of US$5billion. Roughly the same amount was stolen from Nigeria by President Sani Abacha and placed in Swiss private banks. The list of corrupt practices in Africa is endless. However, the point about corruption in Africa is not that it exists; the point is that foreign aid is one of its greatest aides. Aid creates a vicious cycle of dependency in Africa; a cycle that chokes off desperately needed investment, instills a culture of kleptomania, and facilitates rampant and systematic corruption, all with deleterious consequences for economic growth. It is this cycle, Moyo posits, that "perpetuates underdevelopment, and guarantees economic failure in the poorest aid-dependent countries" (49). Aid creates a fertile ground for rent-seeking, that is, the use of governmental authority to take and make money without trade or production of wealth. Because foreign aid is fungible--easily stolen, redirected and extracted-- it facilitates corruption. At a very basic level, an example of this is where a government official with access to aid money set aside for public welfare takes the money for his own personal use. Examples are legion in Africa. Foreign aid programs, which tend to lack accountability, and check and balances, act as substitutes for tax revenues. The tax receipts that aid releases are then diverted to unproductive and often wasteful purposes rather than the productive public expenditure (education, health infrastructure, etc) for which they were ostensibly intended. Moyo points out that in "Uganda, for example, aid-fueled corruption in the 1990s was thought to be so rampant that only 20 cents of every US$1 of government spending on education reached the targeted local primary school."(53) Strangely enough, Larry Diamond (2004) observes, Western aid agencies, notably the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, continue to give aid to African states, with notorious authoritarian and corrupt governments. His list includes Cameroon, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Angola, Eritrea, Guinea and Mauritania. Africa is the region that receives the largest amount of foreign aid, receiving more per capita in official development assistance than any other region of the world. Yet her social infrastructure is in a state of utter decrepitude! Moyo notes that any large influx of money into an economy, however robust, has the potential to create serious problems. With the relentless flow of unmitigated, substantial aid money to Africa, these problems are magnified, especially in economies that are, by their very nature, poorly managed, weak and susceptible to outside influence, over which domestic policymakers have little or no control. Moyo contends that increases in foreign aid are correlated with declining domestic savings rates. As she puts it, "As foreign aid comes in, domestic savings decline; that is, investment falls."(61) She further observes that with all the tempting aid monies on offer, which are notoriously fungible, the relatively few people who have access to it, spend it on consumer goods instead of saving the cash. As savings decline, local banks have less money to lend for domestic investment. Worse still, foreign aid has an equally damaging crowding-out effect: although aid is meant to encourage private investment by providing loan guarantees, subsidizing investment risks and supporting co-financing arrangements with private investors, in practice it discourages the inflow of such high-quality foreign monies. Moyo points out that empirical research has shown that higher aid-induced consumption leads to an environment where much more money is chasing fewer goods."(61) This almost invariably leads to price rises--inflation. Over and above, aid chokes off the export sector. This phenomenon is known as the Dutch disease, as its effects were first observed when natural gas revenues flooded the Netherlands in the 1960s, devastating the Dutch export sector and increasing unemployment. Moyo argues that aid inflows have adverse effects on overall competitiveness, export sector (usually in the form of decline in the share of those in the manufacturing sector and ultimately growth). In the oddest turn of events, the fact that aid reduces competitiveness, and thus the trading sector's ability to generate foreign-exchange earnings, makes countries even more dependent on aid, leaving them exposed to all the negative consequences of aid-dependency. In countries with weak financial systems, additional foreign resources do not translate into growth of stronger financially dependent industries. So if foreign aid harbors such adverse effects for African economies why are donors bent on doling it out? And why aren't recipients sagacious enough to put an end to the lethal cycle of aid? Moyo's Dead Aid model provides solid answers to these intriguing questions. She notes that "Africa is addicted to aid. For the past sixty years, she says, Africa has been fed aid. Like any addict, Africa needs and depends on its regular fix, finding it hard, if not impossible to contemplate existence in an aid-less world."(75) Her book provides an antidote, a road map for riding Africa of aid dependency. Arguing that the aid program in Africa has not worked precisely because it was never conceived with the intention of promoting the economic development of Africa, she proposes alternatives to foreign aid. She notes that like the challenges faced by someone addicted to drugs, the withdrawal is bound to be painful. Nonetheless, if implemented in the most efficient way, the solutions offered in Dead Aid will help to dramatically reduce Africa's reliance on aid money. Moyo cites Botswana as an example of an economic success story in Africa. Botswana began with a high ratio of aid to GDP but used the aid wisely to provide important public goods that helped support good policies and sound governance and laid the foundation for robust economic growth for the country. She says this stratagem can be replicated all over Africa. Her alternatives to aid, predicated on transparency and accountability, would provide the life-blood through which Africa's social capital and economies will grow. Her Dead Aid strategy leaves room for modest amounts of aid to be part of Africa's development financing strategy. Systematic aid will be a component of her Dead Aid Model, but only insofar as its presence decreases as other financing alternatives take hold. The ultimate goal, as far as Moyo is concerned, is an aid-free Africa. In a nutshell, Dead Aid proposes radical solutions to the pressing economic problems of our time. It offers a new model for financing development in Africa's poorest countries, one that offers economic growth, promises to significantly reduce endemic poverty, and most importantly, does not rely on aid. Though Moyo is not the first economic pundit to take Western aid donors to task, never has the case against aid been made with such rigor and conviction. She does not pull her punches. "In a perfect world," she writes, "what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving."(xi) Her most radical proposal comes in the form of a rhetorical question: "What if," she asks, "one by one, African countries each received a phone call...telling them that in exactly five years the aid taps would be shut off permanently?"(xi)

The main thrust is that the 52 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have not developed economically because they have not had access to money necessary to invigorate economic improvements. She differentiates development “aid” money which is free, from other loans and grants that can be interpreted as basically free (aid) or at least below sub-prime rates and inspires us with renewed hope as banks and international communities have created new financial vehicles with the hopes of targeting local entrepreneurs (e.g., farmers, small business) to seed improved quality of life in Africa. Over the 60 years of foreign development aid and last 20 years of increased foreign investment markets, there is scant evidence that African quality of life has changed. To some degree, she argues that past investments failed. She uses the per capital annual income as a measure of poverty. She did not correlate (there may not be any) aid/loans versus per capital income – and then relate that to a quality of life. The subjectivity of “quality of life” may not be in scope of her book. This gets into deep philosophical arguments of ancillary value to this book. I would have settled for per capita income vs time vs income streams. Dr. Moyo suggests that current African leaders are more business savvy, international, more responsible, and perhaps less corrupt. Most African countries have also become democracies. These systemic changes would certainly suggest that the investment environment has improved. Perhaps these structural changes are too recent, and the positive results will take time to develop. Corruption aside, she does not develop an argument why past investment (e.g., free money) did not work, yet money with interest (e.g., a loan with interest) is suddenly more valuable to an economy. Many readers might find it evident that the psychology of free money is a negative influence. Free money versus earned money (paying interest) is important for self-esteem, but it isn’t clear how higher self-esteem affects better economic policies and decisions. She also implies that free money is riper for corruption. Though not part of the main thesis, she discusses a new funding stream for small business, where collateral is not needed. She calls this micro-finance. The goal is to provide loans to the poor people with “capital” but not in the sense that banks historically recognize. She does a nice job describing how farmer’s lands may not be considered collateral, as the land may not have the traditional earmarks of “property” as guaranteed by property laws of the country. This grass-roots approach seems to be working – loans get paid back. It is not clear what “working” means in terms of economic development. Regardless, she did mention that 97% of these loans go to women. It is this fact that probably indicates that economic stability is predicated more toward social science than the science of banks (loaning money and getting back more money). The book is informative of the half-dozens creative ways that loans can be structured and applied as a function of political boundaries, common trade partners, or other paradigms that bring likeminded business opportunities to Africa. She correctly identifies barriers to success ranging from a lack of in-country infrastructure (roads, rivers) to trade tariffs that hinder or exclude African trade with international partners that could bring in foreign (and stable) currency. Africa has oil and metals resources. Leveraging these economic staples is not discussed as a means for greater economic improvement. Instead, she insists (based on word count) the problem is mostly structuring loans that fit African challenges. This sound reasonable – if there is a profit. And that last statement is important – are we going for profit or helping people? Dr. Moyo would say both. And I agree. The beauty of capitalism is it is win-win – not zero sum. These latter statements are outside the scope of this book, and more indicative of the reviewer’s bias. I assumed there would be a greater discussion of African pathology, but that may have been my fault for reading my bias into the title. I would have thought the underlying issues was not banking but something more basic in nature. My prejudice is that lasting systems derive from culture, and everything else is downstream. Said another way, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Banks and loans are a strategy. She does get on a role in the last chapter. She clearly states, that giving free money to Africa without conditions is the reason Africa has not gotten onto the economic ladder. She believes the more recent loan structures, with conditions, is the future to economic prosperity. Money with conditions is one way to encourage responsible behavior in the individual person. This leads to more collective correct behavior and so the hierarchy of trust expands, and this creates a more positive economic environment. Few would disagree that free money corrupts. But we usually think of aid at a very local level - welfare. Dr. Moyo expands this concept to a continent and thinks that Africa paid a huge price for money without conditions. This book is on the right track, but my inclination (bias) is that success is more about innovation, risk, and smart decisions. These are values that must trickle from the top down through the middle managers and administrators. I would further suggest that knowledge and education need to trickle down to the poor – though education. Without these characteristics, money is irrelevant. Dr. Moyo proposes a more grass roots trickle up theory. Point taken, working it from top and bottom is good. Perhaps Moyo is right, money with conditions may work, but it probably takes a generation or two to see results. This is a commitment in time that may be over the horizon for most government radar. Good first book for Dr. Moyo. I might read some later works to see if she has broadened her interests.

In direct contention with the pervading assumption that international aid is critical for the survival and eventual growth of the most impoverished countries, Dambisa Moyo contends that aid has actually inhibited these countries from achieving sustainable economic growth. Instead of providing a basic level of sustenance for a country, aid encourages corruption and locks a country into a cycle of debt that prevents viable economic sectors from developing. In this opposition, Moyo recommends a combination of foreign direct investment, intentional and regional trade, bond markets, increasing domestic savings, and reducing the costs of remittances while tailoring these options to the specific circumstances of each country. Response: Moyo makes a compelling argument against broad intergovernmental aid. Nevertheless, one of the primary arguments of Jeffrey Sachs, the developer of the Millennium Development Goals and author of The End of Poverty, is that targeted aid to local communities that increases GDP per capita above $300 breaks the poverty trap and allows for economic progress to begin. Until that trap is broken, households cannot amass enough capital for reinvestment, which is critical for economic growth. As Moyo notes, massive flows of aid to any given country do not produce this effect. Rampant corruption, a lack of growth, and rent seeking by public officials become the norm. In short, aid may be able to alleviate poverty and jumpstart an economy but the problem is with the implementation. Unfortunately, there may not be a reliable way to deliver aid to local communities in Sachs' vision on a broad scale. In which case, stopping aid and pursuing other avenues for raising capital as Moyo advocates may still be the best way to spur economic development throughout Africa. Secondly, Moyo does not discuss the complexities of trade barriers thoroughly enough. There is little question that Western subsidies on agriculture create a severe impediment to growth throughout emerging economies. However, there is a valid geostrategic argument to be made for not removing the subsidies. Without subsidies, most Western countries would most likely import that vast majority of their food products, creating a potential weakness during conflict. Taking a realist perspective, removing trade subsidies would tilt the balance of power to countries that may violently challenge the Western hegemony, a risk not worth the increased growth in the developing world. There are also counterpoints to the geostrategic argument as well. A neoliberal would likely argue that increased economic prosperity will result in a greater adoption of democratic norms and then use democratic peace theory (democracies seldom fight each other, therefore, if every country is a democracy there should be relatively little war) to argue that concerns for the balance of power are largely irrelevant. Moyo merely acknowledges that there is a geostrategic argument but does not attempt to debase or critique it. The Bottom Line: A pivotal book. Moyo strikes an excellent balance between readability and thoroughness, referring to numerous academic studies throughout the book while keeping the writing and content easily accessible. Whether you are involved with development policy or have simply bought the latest (RED) iPod, you need to read this book. For more reviews and a summary of Moyo's main points, find us at Hand of Reason.

Excellent book. About 30 years ago, a friend visiting China discarded some dirty clothes; at his next destination, the items were washed, wrapped and waiting. About 30 years ago, when I mailed t-shirts to Lusaka, Zambia, they were always stolen before reaching their destination. If Moyo cannot understand this difference between China and Africa, then she cannot understand why a trillion dollars of aid has made no impact in Africa. Zambia once built a plant to assemble Fiats; everything except the air in the tyres was imported. Likewise, every bicycle in the country, which is what 95 percent of the population uses, was imported because building a factory to make bicycles was so very lacking in prestige. In other words, the fault rests with Africans and Zambians. Until they recognize this, all aid will be wasted or looted. In 1964, copper made Zambia one of the wealthiest societies in Africa; today, it is scarcely better than Zimbabwe. Why did President Kenneth Kuanda needed several fleets of Mercedes, each shutting down major thoroughfares when they roared forth from the presidential compound - - - just so folks would never know in which convoy he was hiding? Ego, perhaps? Instead of helping the people? So what does this have to do with Moyo? Her book helps understand basic social attitudes in Zambia and Africa -- if foreign aid is stolen, it doesn't help anyone but the thief. But, as Rwandan President Paul Kagame points out in the April 2009 issue of 'Fast Company' magazine, foreign aid is vital for economic progress. The issue is the integrity with which it is used. The problem is not in the stars, colonialists, foreign aid or Harvard graduates. The problem is in the recipients. After a century of humiliation, the Chinese are rising to greatness. They use foreign investment, technology, knowledge plus their own work, integrity and sense of pride. Perhaps China has the credibility to tell Africans, "We did it. You can, too. Here's how." Moyo's book succinctly explains the problem when aid is stolen or misused; the essential question is whether macho African officials will listen to an intelligent woman and learn. If not, her best advice is, "Don't waste your money . . . . ." Moyo's education at Oxford, Harvard and Goldman Sachs are "foreign" to the learning of a traditional Zambian village. But then, without such "foreign aid" combined with personal perception, would the egregious errors of donors who are blind to all but their own sense of righteousness ever be corrected? Moyo whines; President Kagame succeeds. But even those who whine can contribute . . . if people listen. Let's hope the powers-that-be listen to Moyo and then support the Kagames of Africa.

I agree entirely with Dambisa Moyo. But the material in this book repeats and repeats itself. This should have been an in-depth magazine article rather than a book. Excellent source material, top-notch notes section, great index. Moyo lays out the cycle of dysfunction on page 6: Africa is unable to get on sound economic footing. & out of 10 failed nations are in Africa. She explains three types of aid: emergency aid; charitable aid; and systemic aid. The first two types are plagued with distribution problems and come with strings attached. But it is the thrird type that the book addresses -- aid from one government to another that results in indebtedness and economic stagnation. On page 11, she blames Maynard Keynes. Daring! And true! And this is probably the first reason why OxFam doesn't like this book. OxFam is all excuses for the failure of African aid: 1) it's the climate. It's the terrain. 2) it's the history of colonialism 3) Africans are genetically bad 4) Africans are culturally bad. 5) There is too much diversity in Africa. Tribalism and ethnic strife breed distrust between groups and prohibit consensus on policy. 6) Africans have poor governance. Moyo addresses each of these excuses and turns attention back to the harms done by (possibly) well-intentioned westerners offering aid to Africa. There's a problem on page 35: Moyo promises to look at 6 proofs that aidcan work, but she delivers only four: 1) the Marshall Plan 2) IDA graduates 3) conditional aid 4) democracy-dependent aid Chapter 9 gets into Muhammad Yunus's breakthoroughs in microfinance. For more about this, I recommend the book "Banker to the Poor."

This is a must-read. Granted, Moyo is doubtless receiving more press simply because she is a black African female giving a fairly conservative opinion of aid. Others have been saying this same thing for a long time, but it's often disregarded as an excuse for saving money or keeping help from the poor. I live and work in Haiti, and this is completely as applicable to this country as it is to Africa, although the Chinese influence doesn't apply here. I recommend this for all aid workers, and really anyone connected with emerging (or not) economies. Aid is a bad thing! Of course, Moyo doesn't go quite that far, but I certainly do. She bases her findings on well documented data, and arranges it in quite an easy-to-read volume. I'm looking forward to more works by her.

DEAD AID from Dambisa MOYO. I have to say that reading the lady's book has been truly refreshing. I've not been a regular book reader these last years, but this is about to change with Amazone and the likes. The reason why I bought the book is that Dambisa Moyo has been given the opportunity to explain and defend here views and she did it brillantly in a number of TV shows. I particularly liked when she talked about the Bono trend of rock stars recycling into developpement experts. The idea that no one would expect the government of France to seek economical advises from Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace) or from Manu Dibango is obvious. These are serious matters. And I think she did a good job of trying to remind it. As for the people criticizing here, some have said that here book would have been scrutinized harder if it wasn't for her beeing African. This is BS. She has been asked all the though questions and she answered all of them. As for my appreciation of the book. I totaly subscribe to the impact of AID on government accountability and corruption. I consider this to be a huge "issue". Now I don't beleave in a benevolant dictator. I find it too risky to rely on any one person for such a huge work. I'd rather start an Obama like work of empowering the people even if it may be a longer route to a better future. The second interessting point is the impact of curroption and random law enforcement on investments, especially for local investment. I think we need to stress the fact that FDI are not the only ones to need a clean, secured and fair bussiness environment. The lack of it is currently the main reason why people are leaving their own country and are not coming back. Regarding "micro finance" as a solution for developpement, as far as I'm concerned, this can only be a transitory solution to help people survive. States needs to provide a framework for real strong and cheap "credit" to all this creative africans. Regular banks failed to do their job because the govs failed to enforce such a basic pre-requisit. We need to take back our governments. Trying to work around the failing ones is not an option. And for me "micro finance" is one such workaround, that can be found everywhere in the system. NGO's taking charge of poverty matters are probably the worst effect of this workaround tendancy. Even basic infrastructure are sponsored by all sort of "goodwill" initiatives. This is nonsense. I also subcribe to Dambisa's view on Chinese presence on the continent and again it all boils down to what kind of partner we African are willing to be? Juniors accepting gifts and signing anything submited to us or the main proposition force behind? People are quick to point to the human and cultural diversity on the continent as a problem, my view is that maybe except for North Africa, the continent is more homogenous humanly and culturaly than most of the big economical integrated groups that I know. We need to take bold steps to undo the colonial bondaries. It's far more costly to keep them than to get rid of them. We should start working seriously toward that goal. We need to be creative in finding other options to get rid of corrupting aid. From the book the best option we have so far is to convince donors of the sometimes nocivity of their goodwill. This is not enough, we need to design an autonomous alternative to that. We all need to understand it doesn't have to be that way. Our future belongs to us first. We will need to be even more creative in the design of strategies that will help take back our govs. Overall this is a good reading for any proud african, but also to anyboby willing to have a different spot light on the issue of developpement. We may have lost the opportunity to plant the trees twenty years ago, but we can still plant plenty of them now. Cheers,

This is a personal view of the author, however, I think she is very convincing in her arguments. I remembered the Ethiopia's massive famine 30 years or so ago. I was a small child and remembered the whole event. I remembered breaking my piggy bank for the starving children in Ethiopia, which I do not even know where the country was. After almost 30 years, Ethiopia has not develop much, and any disaster would wipe out any gain that was made during this 3 decades. I think the fact that there are about 1/2 million western workers, diplomats and non-profit groups, NGOs, and UN depended on the Aid industry, there may never be a true solution to the poverty and misery in Africa. Since this at least 1/2 million people's living depend on misery in Africa. I think her points of arguing against the aid are valid and profound, especially the example of the mosquito net maker in Africa, and what the aid did to these small businesses. When we are kicking and screaming about the despots in Africa, we cloak our rhetoric with compassion, when chastising China and India, who are actually doing the building work in Africa. If we can overlook the Cuba's Castro Brothers as good men, I think we should overlook the, if there is any benevolent dictator that can help push through the changes that African countries desperately need. I guess my point of view is a bit utilitarian, but for everyone who stays in misery's sake, maybe a little utilitarian is not too bad of an idea.

Before reading this book, I did not have much knowledge about conditions that helped to keep people in the poorest countries poor. I bought this book with the goal of learning about this topic and generally more about global issues. My background is not economics or social studies, but the content was presented in such a way that a layperson can understand it. The author of this book was able to share complex ideas in a way that a regular person, like me, would be able to understand. I have read other books written by academically inclined people and was not disappointed to discover that a large section at the end was references that supported the author’s position throughout every chapter of the book. I think this book is important for someone to read, especially if they are working on projects that are supposed to help the less fortunate. Understanding the already known impact of the kinds of “help” the developed world provides to the developing world is important, in my opinion, to ensure that what happens is actually the desired result. Throughout this book, I found it interesting to see what happened when well-meaning developed countries took actions that were supposed to help those in need and ended up making things worse for the recipients. I would like to thank the author for writing this book. I feel that it has helped me to better understand how things work in the broader world outside of things that I would have experienced as a person born in Canada. It was an interesting read and I would recommend it to anyone interested in history, economics, and helping people in other countries.

Lu par simple curiosité pour le sujet, j'en ai appris des choses. J'ai trouvé ce livre agréable à lire, car bien construit et reduit sur l'essentiel. A chacun d'évaluer les propositions de l'auteure, personnellement j'ai trouvé ses arguments, appuyés sur des exemples, assez convaincants.

Muito boa síntese feita pelo autor. Abrange tópicos importantes para análise do tema da ajuda humanitária e de fomento econômico, para que não sejam recursos desperdiçados sem alcançar o objetivo inicial.

I thought this book did an excellent job of exposing the dark world of overseas aid. It worked through all the issues in an ordered way, describing in detail so many of the problems which, instead of being relieved by aid funding, are in fact being mostly created by it. The author puts her points across very well to give a convincing argument against blindly pouring aid into the developing world. As she points out, aid has been one of the biggest hurdles these nations have been forced to deal with, giving rise to corruption on a massive scale. Later in the book she points out how China has become very active in Africa. This is seen by many in the west as purly an excersize in self interest, but realistically the way the Chinese operate is giving real tangible benefits to a lot of these developning nations. Overal, I enjoyed reading this book as it trashed an awful lot of the general accepted viewpoints so popular in the western nations. I have lived and worked in several West African nations and have seen of a lot of the waste, incompentence or just outright corruption which is endemic once aid money comes pouring in. Read this book and you will see that aid, in the present form favoured by the west, is not the massive boost so many people claim it to be, but more of a shackle holding back so many nations.

Dambisa Moyo has written a wonderful book that should be mandatory to any African politician. It explains quite well how fateful was thinking that aids could bring prosperity not in one country but to all 54 African countries. The book does not understandably address the other reasons behind the African economic failure, namely their incapable, greedy, clueless, incompetent, gutless,sometime ruthless, always short-sighted leaders. And sad to say .. the citizens have not been wise too since Africans did not have anything going against "the heaven, the earth and the people". No real revolution has taken place in Africa, just this sad legacy of colonisation in which in some part has been welcome for a matter of tribal opportunism. But the continent is moving. This book is an example. A good read indeed.